My Childhood
I was born on the 19th December 1941. My family had moved into 205 Seventh Avenue Inglewood in June that year. Apparently, Dad had opened his own butcher shop in Beaufort Street Mt Lawley. Previously the family had lived in Guildford.
My earliest memory though, was when I was four and a half. My Dad took me down the street to one of our neighbours at my best friend Judy Kelly’s, at about 5 o’clock at night. We had just finished dinner and I took my sweets with me – a piece of sponge cake with jam on it. I did not want to go. I was very upset. I knew something was wrong. We got to Judy’s and while Dad went down the drive around to the back door I was left to finish my cake before joining him – and I had an idea. Because I blamed the Kelly’s for taking me away from my Mum I would spit my cake and jam into their garden and lots of ants would come – that would pay them back!
My next memory was of being in the hall of our house and Mum was arriving home! Excited I ran to the door. Dad squatted down in the doorway to show me - in his arms was a baby! I was so thrilled! I had a baby brother - Terry!
I remember Mum telling me a story of when she and Dad had their first baby – my big brother Neville. They didn’t own a car so when they went out it was on Dad’s motorbike – with mum and bub in the sidecar! At home when Neville was fractious, Mum would go and nurse him in the sidecar jiggling up and down going brrmm brrmm. It worked a dream!
Other stories Mum told was about my older sister Lesley. When I was a baby Mum had to take Lesley to a specialist in St George’s Terrace in Perth. Lesley was about five years old and was diagnosed as being autistic and having ‘Grande Mal’ Epilepsy. Mum said she walked down the Terrace hugging me to her, crying her eyes out.
Even so, Lesley was very clever and very musical. When she was four years old, the union Dad was in had their Christmas party in Trades Hall in Perth. Apparently Lesley, full of confidence went on stage and sang ‘The Donkey Serenade’ absolutely note perfect.
For years Mum kept a perfect drawing Lesley did of a Walt Disney figure of a farmer holding his arms out rolling up his sleeves. Incredibly Lesley apparently drew it by starting at one point and not taking her pencil off the paper until finished.
Another side to Lesley was that she couldn’t lie. For example, she came in one day and said, “I turned the gas on in Mrs Connor’s kitchen”. Mum raced over the road to Mrs Connor’s (our neighbour). Mrs Connor wasn’t home so Mum went in, turned off the gas, opened all the windows and started flapping a tea towel to air the room. Next thing Mrs Connor came home! Oops!
Lesley came in another day and told Mum she had watered Mrs Sinclair’s bedroom. Apparently, she was watering our next-door neighbour’s front garden while Mrs Sinclair was airing her front bedroom and had the windows open with the bedding hanging on the windowsill.
Another time during the summer when Lesley was about 6 years old she didn’t come home from school. We didn’t have a phone at that time, so Mum had to wait for Dad to come home from work. He went around the next street to the local police station. The constable came around to take down Lesley’s details. It was after 7:30 at night. Mum, Dad and the police officer were standing at the front gate.
Mum looked up the road and cried out.
There was Lesley walking down the street swinging her little Mills & Wares school case with not a care in the world. Where had she been? Well she had felt like going to Perth Zoo so she left school, walked down to Beaufort Street, and caught a tram down to Mend Street jetty in Perth. On the tram she told a lady she had lost her money, so the lady gave her sixpence. She then caught the ferry to South Perth, walked up the hill to the Zoo and just walked in. Mum imagined she just walked in with a family as they went in.
My older brother tells the story of when Dad had bought a family car – it had a soft top and he had just paid to have the soft top replaced – he was very proud of it. He went outside to admire the car just in time to see Lesley, using it as a trampoline, go straight through! Oops!
Another memory was when I had just turned five years old. It was very exciting – I was going to start school! My friend Nola was coming as well although she was six months younger than me. All mothers and children lined up, but Nola was turned away! She was too young! I was so upset that I cried and cried. They told Mum to take me home and bring me back the following year.
When we got home I went way down the back yard near the back lane and cried and cried again – this time because I didn’t start school.
At that time, our lavatory was right down the back on the back fence. A night cart would come along the back laneway once a week to empty it. And no such thing as toilet paper for us - we used cutup newspaper!
Dad had built a swing right down in the back of our yard. It was made from two discarded light poles and a very heavy length of chain. He had cut a piece of jarrah plank with a V shaped notch each side for a seat.
My friend Nola and I were inseparable. We would both stand on the seat, swinging together. When deep sewerage arrived in our suburb there were workmen digging a trench diagonally across our back yard past our swing. One of the workmen was a young man with blonde curly hair. We thought that was funny. Every time he walked past us on the swing we would get the giggles and laughing so much would fall off.
In our back yard was a huge jacaranda tree. I loved climbing trees and would climb right to the top. I was Errol Flynn - (my movie star hero) – a pirate, and I was in the crow’s nest searching out for enemies!
My best friend then was Sandra. But she was a ‘girlie-girl’, she wanted to play fairies! I ask you - fairies? I tried to teach her to climb trees. There was a big lilac tree next door on our fence line. She managed to get up to the lowest branch but then got stuck. I had to show her how to climb down. I ask you!
Sandra was from a Jewish family and we were very close. I was invited to go with her to her cousin Marcus’s birthday party; we were about 11 or 12 years old. The highlight of the party was when another guest, quite a bit younger than us, played the piano – he was brilliant, and I was so jealous. His name was none other than David Helfgott!
Talking of pianos, I remember when I was practising one day, Mum was in the other room getting tea ready when she called out correcting me - “that should be Bb Meryl” – I was so cross – how could she know? She was in the other room and couldn’t even see the music! My dear mother had perfect pitch, which unfortunately she didn’t pass on to me.
We always went away for our holidays and one of the earliest places we went was in a caravan on the grassed area in the Norfolk Island pine trees above South Beach in Fremantle.
Across the road was a fun fair with sideshows. We went there in the August school holidays and although Dad would still be at work, he would join us on the weekend. I remember when I was about 4 or 5 years old I became quite ill. Mum called a doctor to come and see me – I clearly remember him coming in the door of the caravan – he took one look at me and backed out – he said to Mum that I had highly infectious scabies!
Mum then called Dad at work, and he came out after work. He took one look at me and said it was only flea bites – yep he was right! The caravan was infested.
After our Fremantle holidays, the next place we went was at Hillary’s Beach. Dad bought a second-hand sideshow building from the Fremantle fun fair and rebuilt it on the top of the sandhills at Hillary’s where there were fishermen’s shacks and other holiday shacks.
At that time, the road along the coast ended just past North Beach at the beginning of Sorrento Beach and from there you had to walk 20 minutes along the beach or 20 minutes by car along a heavy sand track. Dad kept an old ute in the bush at Sorrento and left his good car at the end of the bitumen taking the battery from his good car and putting it into the old ute. He piled us all onto the ute and off we would go.
As with our holidays at Fremantle, Dad would work while Mum, my sister Lesley and my younger brother Terry were at Hillary’s during the August holidays. One year when I was about 12, my sister Lesley had a fall and broke her hip during the evening. Mum had no way of contacting Dad until he was at work at Cresco’s Fertilisers in Bassendean the next morning.
Mum woke me about half past six, gave me some money and told me how to use a phone box and sent me off to walk to North Beach to phone Dad. I got there eventually, managed to use the phone which I had never done before (!) and then walked back to Hillary’s.
Dad drove from Bassendean to Sorrento and then through the sand track and arrived there just before I made it back!
Dad was a first aid officer and an ambulance driver as second job, took one look at Lesley and confirmed the broken hip.
The track was too rough to take her along there, so he went out and hailed one of the fishermen to help take her along the beach in his boat. Then the sea breeze came in so that was ruled out as the water was very choppy. The only other option was to carry her on a camp stretcher along the beach. Dad padded her up in the stretcher and the fisherman, Dad, Mum and myself carried her with Terry following (he was only 6 or 7). Once arriving in Sorrento and packing Lesley (and us) into the car he drove straight to our family doctor arriving at about 3:30pm. Dr Cawley came out to the car and took one look at her and told Dad to take her straight to RPH.
The doctor said he would phone ahead. Lesley ended up being in hospital for some six weeks. She enjoyed her stay as the nurses spoiled her in lots of ways including painting her fingernails.
I started school at the Mt Lawley Primary School, walking by myself as a just-turned 6-year-old and then riding on my bicycle when older. My first teacher big Miss Arkley - I remember in her classroom there were beautiful chalk illustrations on each blackboard. One was an oasis in a desert with date palms around the water.
She gathered us around the drawing and asked each child what the fruit on the tree was. I was very annoyed as she kept avoiding me!
Eventually she turned and asked me – of course I knew what they were – “Dates”! In retrospect I realised she knew that I knew - which is why she left me until last.
In second standard I was in ‘little’ Miss Arkley’s class. I remember we were learning to write beautifully with a pen and ink. I was very obedient to sit up straight and very carefully write.
My writing was perfect! One day we had a visit from the School Inspector. He walked around the classroom looking at us all and when he came to me he stopped and asked me my name! I ask you – what cheek to interrupt my concentration! I told him my name very loudly!
After graduating 7th Grade I attended Mt Lawley High School. I was among the first intake of Mt Lawley High. As the buildings weren’t completed we had to attend the lower primary Highgate Primary School. I remember climbing on the top of a tall cupboard during one science lesson to open a window for the science teacher. It was so cool I decided to stay there. He just let me be!
I did well in First Year High but in Second Year my grades were down a bit, so Mum decided that I should leave school when I graduated year nine and sent me to Perth Business College where I did shorthand, and bookkeeping. I was brilliant at maths – I remember coming late to my math lesson after the lunch breaks quite a few times and one day the math teacher was so fed up he sent me to the Principal’s office to be punished.
I had to wait quite a few minutes before he called me in then I was sent back to the classroom. I sat down and started the math paper he had set and was still the first student to finish. He was really annoyed! Of course. I had 100%!
During all our school years we all attended Sunday School in the 6th Avenue Church of Christ. Nevill apparently ‘wagged’ it! I attended dutifully as did Terry. As a teenager I attended church and the youth group as well.
When I was 15 I gave my heart to Jesus and was baptised on the 1st January 1957. In those days we wore a long white gown with the hem weighted with lead weights. The minister wore black! (I felt it was so inappropriate).
Mum and Dad both came to see me baptised even though Dad didn’t like going to church as he hated ‘fire and brimstone’ preaching. Mum had attended Church of Christ in Maylands all her life. Her mother, Linda Hall actually started the teenage Christian Endeavour in that Church.
After graduating Business College Mum took me to be assessed to determine what career I should train for. After finishing the test we had an interview. The gentleman who had assessed me asked me what I would like to be. I said either a lawyer or a psychologist. He agreed I could be either!
Mum said no, I was to start work so he made an appointment for me to have an interview at the HBF as a claims clerk. I was employed but on the day I started work there I developed a migraine headache and basically walked out! The next day I was fine so showed up again – much to the trainer’s surprise. I did well there and ended up assisting the supervisor.
In the meantime, I had discovered boys!
I was in love with Lino – the son of the Italian greengrocer in Beaufort Street near the corner of 7th Avenue, and with Bobby – a young man ten years older than me (I was only 15) down the road who had a motorbike - and I loved motor bikes! He took me for rides sometimes and also invited me to join him in the Perth Amateur Fencing Club. I loved fencing and in the summer time a group of us would drive down to Leighton Beach after training, for a nice swim.
Then I had my first real boyfriend Tom Trandos. He was from Macedonia and was one of the fencers. I saw him each Tuesday and Thursday night at fencing and also on group dates with all the fencers on a Saturday night. THEN – it was announced in the West Australian newspaper that Tom was engaged to the daughter of a millionaire!!
Nevertheless, I continued fencing and came second in the 1958-59 Ladies Foil! The ’gang’ at the Fencing Club also went to Judo – so naturally I went along too.
One night my big 6 ft brother asked me to show him what I had learnt. I took one step, took hold of him and threw him down to the dining room floor – oops! His foot went through the glass sliding door on our pantry shelf! Dad wasn’t upset – he thought it hilarious that his daughter could throw her brother down to the ground!
Sometime later I had a girlfriend from work staying one weekend. While with us, Janet had a phone call from a young man she had been longing to go out with and he invited her to the Speedway that night.
She said she couldn’t go because she was staying with a friend but if they got a date for her girlfriend then she could go. Apparently, her young man asked one of his friends to be my date. Two of her friends tossed a coin and the one who lost was to be my date! Yes, it was Paddy! The car load of boys picked us up and took us to Claremont Speedway. I loved it! I sat on the rails and got covered in mud as the motorbikes came around the bend. I didn’t care – it was wonderful!
The following Friday we were invited again but I was performing in a play at Subiaco Home of Peace with my music teacher so couldn’t go. I was really sad, but then on the Sunday after lunch I was on our front verandah when the speedway guys pulled up. They told me that Paddy had come off his motorbike and hurt his foot. His bike had got caught in a tram line.
Of course, as a good Christian girl it was my duty to go and visit the sick – not because he was a bikie!
Despite the beginning when he thought I was daft sitting on the rails at the Speedway, we hit it off and he was my last real boyfriend. We began dating in October 1958 and by December he sold his motorbike as he considered it too dangerous to take me out on. Then in August 1959 I went to my GP and had confirmation I was pregnant. We then had to face our parents.
We told Paddy’s mum first and she said we must tell my parents as soon as possible and on no account was I to let them know she knew first. She was right – the first thing mum asked was if Paddy’s mum knew. The night we told mum and dad, Paddy took Nevill aside and told him. Nevill was very supportive and stood by him – becoming his best man. All things considered my parents were very gracious.
Mum organised my wedding dress and the church and although my Aunty Phyllis had offered to pay for the hire of a hall, my choice was to have the reception in our home.
On the 19th September 1959 we were married in the Inglewood Church of Christ. We drove to King’s Park for beautiful photos taken by my cousin Alan Greenslade who was a photographer then went back home for the reception. Our wedding night was in the local Hotel on the corner of Beaufort Street and Fifth Avenue Inglewood. We then moved into a flat on Oxford Street Claremont which we shared with a single woman. We only stayed there a couple of months before moving into part of a house turned into a flat in Clifton Crescent Mt Lawley.
It was a lovely old house and we had a large lounge room and bedroom, then dining, kitchen and laundry down a passageway that was a louvred verandah.
One night we were fast asleep when Paddy suddenly leapt out of bed and ran down the passageway to the kitchen. Then I heard matches being struck. I called out to him “Are you alright?” No answer. I turned on the light and saw him coming down the passageway with a match in hand lighting his way - with a lace tablecloth draped around his waist. Yes, he couldn’t walk down the passageway naked could he? Apparently he had stretched his leg out and touched my foot and half asleep had thought it was a snake!
Paddy’s family had migrated from Belfast, Ireland in March 1953. They were sponsored by his Mum’s cousin who was a taxi driver. Up until then Paddy (Brian) had been known as Brian McMillen.
His own father, a soldier, had married his mother during the war with Paddy being born in 1938. When Paddy was about 4yrs old her brother came to her home and told her to pack up her things – she was to bring her son and come back home to live. It had been discovered her ‘husband’ was already married and she was “no better than she ought to be”. She was treated like a prostitute but her old boyfriend who still loved her offered to marry her. He was Joseph McMillen.
So Paddy was brought up as Brian McMillen until they needed to get him a passport to migrate and he became Brian Butler. In Ireland he had also started his apprenticeship as an electrician and was wiring whole houses, but when he came to Australia he could only get a job wiring up fluorescent lighting.
We were still living in Mt Lawley when our beautiful baby son arrived! On the fourth of April 1960, I was having slight pains. As we didn’t own a car, my father came around after work to pick us up to stay at my parents place until I needed to go to hospital. Just as we were getting into the car, Paddy’s parents arrived – they must have guessed! Dad took us all around to his place and we all sat around the dining table – Dad at the head with Mum on his left; me at the other end with Paddy on my left and Paddy’s Mum and Dad either side. As the contractions worsened Paddy held my hand under the table and I would squeeze it every time a contraction came with us not letting anyone know how much agony we both were in.
At about 11pm I said I felt I should go to hospital. Mum disagreed – in her opinion I wasn’t in enough pain!
Dad took us anyway to St Anne’s Hospital in Mt Lawley where I was immediately admitted and taken to the Labour Ward. Dad and Paddy went back to Dad’s. At 3:15am my beautiful son Peter was born. In the morning at about 7am Dad rang the hospital and then woke Paddy with a cup of tea to tell him he was the father of a son.
We had applied to Homes West to purchase a new home of our own and when one became available it was in Hawkins Street Embleton. We went to Bankwest in Inglewood to apply for a loan for our deposit of 50 pounds! The total of the house was 3 thousand pounds plus interest which was negligible by todays standards. Once the deposit was made we moved in during December 1960. It had three bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen/diner, a lounge room with a fireplace and a toilet and laundry and back porch together on one side of the building. When we moved in we took probably our first picture of Peter at 9 months old!
The house was below the road on a very steep block. Paddy worked tirelessly (with my help) to layer the grounds so there were 2 grassed layers in the front and at the bottom of the drive he built a retaining wall and then had a flat grassed area then another retaining wall with steps going down to the lower level where at one end there was a workshop and the rest a vegetable garden.
Every Saturday we went to visit Paddy’s Mum and Dad. We couldn’t afford to take two buses to Doubleview from Embleton so we walked – pushing Peter in his pusher. It probably took us two hours or more but it seemed the right thing to do.
One thing I remember is that Peter suffered from projectile vomiting which caused him to not gain weight. I remember the doctor coming to our house and he was sitting on the sofa writing out a prescription and I was standing in the doorway opposite – about eight feet away when Peter threw up and his vomit landed on the doctors expensive leather shoes!
The medication was only a few drops and it worked well. The problem was that it took Peter’s breath away so when I laid him back in my arms to dose him up he screamed and kicked. When I was with Paddy’s mum in her kitchen and dosed him she was angry with me and told me what a cruel mother I was. I turned to see what Paddy would say in my defence but he just walked off!
Twelve months on I was again pregnant with my beautiful daughter Amanda. She was also born in St Ann’s Hospital in Mt Lawley on the 17th April 1962.